1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an allergen detecting apparatus and a chip detecting platform, and more particularly, to provide an allergen detecting apparatus including a microfluidic chip and an allergen microarray chip, and a chip detecting platform applied therefrom.
2. The Prior Arts
Allergy refers to humoral or cellular inflammatory reactions of human immune system induced by allergens. It may generally make patients uncomfortable or cause tissue damages and even result in death when in a serious condition. The common allergic diseases in Taiwan including asthma, allergic rhinitis and hay fever, etc., and the allergens thereof may be proteins or small molecules of chemicals originated from environments, medicines, environmental microorganisms, food and so on. With the modernized development of society, the types of allergens are not only numerous but also have an increasing tendency. According to the data from World Allergy Organization, the number of allergy patients is about 30%-40% of the global population and it continues growing.
Currently, the major detection method of allergens is enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). However, before the test of ELISA, the sample needs to be heated and centrifuged such that allergens included therein will be denatured, loose antigenicity and reduce the solubility. These shortcomings affect the accuracy of measurement. Besides, the amount of reagents used by ELISA equipment is large, and the burden on the cost of detection for the patient is heavy. The newly emerging detection method is developed to utilize microarray chip, by which, different allergens are disposed on the surface of a substrate, and then the serum sample taken from the subject is mixed and reacted with the allergens. Since the detecting reactions of the microarray chip require manual operation and are complicate, it is not favorable for wider application and promotion for the allergen detection. As such, an automatic and high efficient allergen detection apparatus which can reduce the amount of the reagents used and the time taken is needed currently.